


Cunavalas

by bimmyshrug



Category: IT (1990), IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Dark, Animal Death, Animal Sacrifice, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Blood, Blood and Gore, Cults, Dark Richie Tozier, Disturbing Themes, F/F, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gore, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutilation, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks, Psychological Trauma, Religion, Trauma, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-23
Updated: 2020-04-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:47:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23807131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bimmyshrug/pseuds/bimmyshrug
Summary: “I’m tellin’ you, those people are up to some shit.”“Who? What are they up to?”“There’s a group of hippies living in the woods up a ways east of the Kenduskeag. They’re a bunch of weirdos, I’m telling you.”“What makes you say that?”------“You should stay out of the woods. You shouldn’t come back here,” he warns quietly, and Eddie blinks at him.“I don’t plan on it,” Eddie assures, and he feels weirdly exposed as the man’s blue-gray eyes rake over him, no doubt taking in his appearance, and how disheveled he looks.“It’s dangerous.”“I know.”----Journalist Eddie Kaspbrak is sent on an assignment to investigate a string of disappearances in a rural county of Northern Maine, which seem to be centered around a small tourist town by the name of Derry. What was thought to be a simple case of people getting lost in the woods turns to potentially be something much more sinister, and Eddie isn't sure that he wants to find the truth anymore. Or, perhaps he does, after he meets a charming man with striking blue eyes in those same woods, who seems to know more than he's letting on.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 34
Kudos: 171





	Cunavalas

**Author's Note:**

> [ Come deify me on Tumblr ](https://bimmyshrug.tumblr.com/)   
>  [ Cult Vibes Playlist ](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0XlbsmrfqUnuP75kGxvwBN?si=CD4Nsh60TFC3PzUtZ0wHPw)
> 
> HOOOOOKAY long awated and we finally made it, here's chapter one of the cult fic I've been talking about on Tumblr for.... for months. God. Forever. 
> 
> ALSO IMPORTANT NOTE: the tags are going to be updated with each chapter, just so I can be thorough and make sure I don't miss anything. So I'm generally gonna just tag as I go. So check the tags with each update for potential triggers.
> 
> I think that's it! Enjoy and let me know what you guys think! 
> 
> God bless

Derry, Maine.

He’s never even fucking heard of Derry.

“Where is that? Is it near Levant?”

“Nah, it’s up near Caribou.”

 _“Caribou?_ You’re sending me that far north?”

“Listen, Eddie. I know it’s tough getting relocated for an assignment, but this isn’t the easiest field to break into. It’s not like there’s much to report on in Maine, kid. We gotta go where there might be a lead. Who knows; if something is going on, and you do a good job, it could be your breakout story.”

“Well… well where am I supposed to stay while I’m there? And how long am I supposed to be there for?”

“We’ll put you up in a hotel for as long as you need to get the story.”

Well, a three-hour long drive in his mom’s shitty old station wagon with a broken tape player proves that it very much is _not_ a hotel, it’s a motel. A dirty one that has the option to pay by the hour, which he finds surprising, since he’s seen maybe two other people since entering the Derry town limits, let alone anyone even vaguely resembling a prostitute.

It’s eerily quiet here in a way that feels sinister and delicate, like if he slams his car door too hard in the parking lot or drops his bags onto the floor of his room too loudly, the curtain will fall and he’ll see something he isn’t quite meant to. The decaying charm of a northern Maine tourist town.

It is gorgeous, though. He can admit that. Bangor is probably the ugliest city he’s ever been in, but especially for Maine. The change of scenery is nice, at least.

This place, Derry, must be what tourists come to Maine to see: absolutely fucking nothing.

There’s nothing but farmland on one side and seemingly endless forest on the other, spreading into the distance like a lush green ocean with waves of hills and valleys in between. It’s pretty now, though a few months ago it was probably awful to look at. All of those naked trees as far as the eye can see.

Eddie briefly wonders if the rate of disappearances has anything to do with the isolation. It’s winter here for nearly 5 months, and that has to put a toll on the townspeople. Not to mention the woeful lack of anything fun to do, which, in Maine, means they likely have a rampant opioid problem. People might just be ODing and offing themselves because they live in the middle of fucking nowhere.

Though there would probably be bodies somewhere, if that were the case. So that’s probably not it.

Truthfully this entire assignment feels like utter bullshit, but he has no room to complain, really. He’s lucky that he even _has_ this job in the first place. Finding a career in any field a few months after you graduate is tough, let alone something like journalism. He’d been absolutely sure that he wouldn’t be able to find a job at all, and then his mother would have been right.

 _Journalism? Eddie-bear, what on earth will you do with a degree in_ journalism?

_I like writing, ma. I’m good at it, and I think if I-_

_Eddie, sweetheart, you know I love you more than anything, don’t you? You know I’d never lie to you?_

_Yes, ma._

_Then believe me when I tell you that you are not a good enough writer to make something of yourself in such a useless field as that._

He’d like to have rubbed it in her face, but he’s not willing to break their nearly year-long silence for something so petty.

It’s hard not to think about her, though, especially as he’s stripping the motel sheets and blankets off of his bed to dress his mattress with bedding that he brought from home. The bathroom smells vaguely of bleach and he manages to stop himself from re-cleaning it, which he takes as a small victory. He figures he’ll have to get used to sleeping in strange places if this whole investigative journalist thing is going to work out. He can’t quite spend his entire career panicking about mystery stains on motel beds.

Luckily there are none to be found as he smooths his fitted sheet onto the pillow top mattress and secures the corners, which is a relief. The bed itself is softer than he expected, too. Maybe it won’t be as terrible as he feared.

He sets up his typewriter on the small desk in the corner of the room, and puts his clothes away before loading up his camera with film. He slings its strap over his shoulder before tucking his notebook into his back pocket and refilling the ink in his fountain pen. He clips his tape recorder onto the waist of his pants before setting out, making sure to lock the door three times over before he departs.

The front lobby of the motel is decorated in awful, kitschy moose paintings and sculptures that match the tacky, peeling brown and forest green patterned wallpaper. The moose head hanging on the wall behind the front desk is in desperate need of restoration, or perhaps it was never properly taxidermied in the first place. Either way, its comically wide eyes and the missing patches of fur around its antlers have an unsettled queasiness filling Eddie’s stomach as he approaches the clerk at the counter, who is the youngest person he’s seen in town so far. He can’t tell quite how young due to the mop of curly brown hair hanging into her face as she stares into her lap.

“Hi Miss, can I please have a map of the town, if you have any?”

She startles at the sound of his voice and looks up from her book, and Eddie smiles brightly at her as she shoves a bookmark between the pages she was reading and tosses the paperback onto the counter.

“Sorry, I didn’t even hear you coming,” she laughs awkwardly, reaching underneath the counter to pull out a small pile of pamphlets. “So here is a brochure of available attractions around town this week. There’s a farmer’s market on Saturdays and Sundays down in Bassey Park if you’re looking for something to do tomorrow morning, but as for today, there’s a-”

“Actually, I’m not- I’m not here as a tourist,” Eddie interrupts politely. Her eyes flick down to the camera slung around his shoulder in confusion, and Eddie clutches it to his side protectively. “I’m here for work.”

“What kind of work could you possibly have to do in Derry?” she laughs bitterly, and she probably doesn’t mean for it to sound as hostile as it does, but the skeptical look in her eyes reads of a small town girl who is wary of outsiders.

Eddie gets that, he’s from a small town, too. Not as small as Derry, and nowhere near as secluded, but just as protective of its secrets. He expected some push back, and now is the perfect time to practice some of the skills he learned during his junior year internship, during which he interviewed citizens all over Bangor about their opinions on President Clinton’s platform to “protect America’s values.” If he could get through that, he can definitely get through this.

“My name is Edward Kaspbrak. I’m a reporter from the Bangor Daily News-”

“Bangor? The hell you doing all the way up here, then?”

“Just investigating the disappearances around Aroostook County. There seem to have been quite a few in this area specifically, so I figured this was the best place to start,” Eddie explains, and her eyes light up immediately.

She looks around the lobby to check for other visitors before leaning over the counter towards Eddie, beckoning him closer with her finger.

“Between you and me, I thought it was a bunch of dope heads shooting up and dying in the woods or some shit. Getting eaten by coyotes or whatever, you know? But me and my friends were in the woods a ways off the hiking trail drinkin’ last weekend and we found some _weird shit_. Like… like _weird.”_

Eddie reaches back to take his notebook out of his pocket, but she grabs his wrist to stop him with an urgent look in her eyes.

“This is off the record, right? Like- Like you’re not gonna use my name?”

Eddie slowly removes his wrist from her grip and reaches back into his pocket carefully, with her eyes watching him the whole time. “I’m just taking notes for my own personal use. Besides, I don’t even know your name, Miss.”

She blinks at him before a nervous smile breaks across her face, and Eddie politely pretends not to notice the dusting of pink across her cheeks. “Right, sorry. I just- I’m home from college for summer break, and my dad would absolutely skin me if he found out I was partying with my friends in the woods. He’s the game warden for the county and he’s had a bug up his ass about the disappearances.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

She rolls her eyes and leans her elbows onto the counter, and Eddie uncaps his pen with his teeth before holding it to his notepad.

“Well, before I left for spring semester, they had this new town ordinance that you could get fined $1,000 for going off the hiking trails- a grand! How crazy is that?”

“Totally crazy!” Eddie agrees, trying to be enthusiastic. It seems to work because she smiles brightly and gently places her hand on his forearm.

“Right? Well, anyway, it caused a lot of issues around town because one of our lesser known tourist attractions is this little waterfall that’s a little ways down the mountain, and you can’t get there without going off the hiking trail. So it started this big debate about restricting the use of the woods, and if they should expand the hiking trails, and blah blah blah. It was a big deal for a while. It died down a bit right before I left, but now they’re being crazy strict about going off those trails. Before, you could get away with a slap on the wrist, but I know people who’ve been fined for going off the trails to go fishin’ in one of the streams east of the path right off the end of Wilmington Road.”

“And… you don’t know why they issued the ordinance?” Eddie asks, scribbling _path at end of Wilmington rd east_ into his notepad.

“Well, that’s the thing. Daddy said that it was because people were wandering off and getting lost in the snow, and they figured people were freezing to death out there. But it wasn’t just issued for winter, it’s year round. I think he knows something else is up, because he’s been really strict about me and my little sister going out there at all, even if it’s just on the hiking trails.”

“So is that why you and your friends went into the woods? To see for yourself?”

“Nah, we just wanted a place to go drink where we wouldn’t be bothered. There’s nothing to fucking do around here, that’s why everyone shoots dope and fires off guns in their backyards,” she rolls her eyes, and Eddie bites back an amused laugh. “We didn’t think there was a reason- like a _real_ reason why we shouldn’t have been out there.”

“And did you find out that there was?”

Her eyes take on an almost mischievous gleam, and she places her hand on Eddie’s forearm again before speaking. “We found a bunch of, like, _mutilated_ dead animals.”

“Mutilated?”

“Yeah, like- throats cut, skinned, some of ‘em missing limbs. There was a bunny with just its head missin’. Weird shit,” she repeats, and Eddie grimaces before taking a moment to finish scribbling with his pen and gather his thoughts to respond.

“So- So these animal corpses, do you think it was another animal that did it? A bear, perhaps?”

She snorts out a laugh and slaps him playfully on the shoulder, and he’s starting to become very aware of how often she’s touching him. “No way in hell. You think a bear plucked half the feathers off of dove and nailed it to a tree? I don’t fucking think so.”

_“Nailed to a tree?”_

“Oh yeah, big time. Right through his little skull. Kinda sad, honestly,” she shrugs, but she doesn’t seem like she thinks it’s very sad at all.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie mumbles underneath his breath before he can stop himself. “Do you have any theories as to what might be going on?”

“Honest opinion?”

“Please.”

“I think it’s witches.”

“Witches?”

“Hell yeah! Like satanic witches, going out and doing rituals in the woods and shit. We never had any satanic shit going on this far north back a few years ago when all that Satanic Panic shit was going on, but I think it made its way up to us, finally,” she explains, and she seems nearly happy that it has.

Eddie feels really stupid scribbling down _satanic witches?_ into his notebook, but he does anyway. “I’m sorry if this is too personal a question, but do you know any of the people that have gone missing?”

“Like, personally? No, not really. I went to high school with one of the guys who went missing last month, but I’m still pretty convinced he ran off to California or something without telling anybody. He’s a real hippie.”

“So he’s probably not hiding out in the woods, dancing naked with witches and nailing birds to trees?” Eddie grumbles, and he knows it’s rude, but she cackles and places her hand on his arm once more.

“I can’t say for sure, I wouldn’t put it past him though.”

“Is there any way I might be able to interview your father-”

“No way in hell,” she interrupts immediately, and Eddie deflates. He got… _some_ good information from her, but he needs a solid lead.

“Not even if I don’t tell him that you were the one who led me to him?”

“He’d know anyway; he’s, like, psychic or something, I swear to God,” she rolls her eyes before thoughtfully biting her lower lip. “You could go to the police, though. They might be willing to give you some information. The local cops are a lot less tight-lipped about everything than the warden and the sheriff are. I think they mostly just don’t know what to do anymore, honestly.”

“Great, thank you! Is the police station a landmark that would be marked on the map of town, or…?” Eddie asks, gently reminding her that she hasn’t given him one yet.

She smacks herself on the forehead and laughs nervously again, and her cheeks are dusted pink once more. “Ugh, sorry; I’m such an airhead, you know? That’s why they don’t trust me with the keys to the front door,” she jokes, and Eddie smiles in response as she reaches back under the counter before pulling out a tri-folded town map.

She unfolds it and lies it flat on the desk, and everything about it screams “small Maine tourist town.” There’s a little cartoon moose holding up the box with the legend inside, and the border is a bunch of lobsters and buoys connected by strings of rope, which makes no sense, since they aren’t very close to the coastline.

“So the police station is right here,” she points to a little drawing of a policeman’s badge with a red-painted fingernail, “but you probably want to try the diner next door first. It’s about lunchtime, so there’ll be quite a few of them in there. Be careful about what you say, though; the guy who owns the diner is this, like, _super_ crotchety old guy. The place is always full of locals because he’s so rude to tourists, so he won’t be keen on you.”

“Thanks for the heads up. You’ve been so helpful, Miss,” Eddie thanks her politely before taking the map and folding it back up to tuck into his back pocket, along with his notepad.

“You can call me Mandy.”

“Thank you, Mandy.”

She smiles and bites her lip again, and Eddie shuffles his feet, despite doing his best to hold off his nervous ticks.

“No problem at all, Edward,” she says, reaching for a handshake. Eddie grips her hand in his own and firmly shakes twice, and she giggles before pulling away.

“It’s Eddie, actually. Nobody calls me Edward, except for my mom,” he laughs awkwardly, but Mandy seems not to notice how uncomfortable he is. He can talk to people professionally with ease, but being casually friendly with others is something he struggles with. He figures it’s because he spent so much of his college career working and studying rather than making friends and partying, though he doesn’t regret that. It’s a large part of the reason that he was able to set up a job for after he graduated.

“Well, Eddie, how long are you planning on being in town?”

“Um… truthfully? No idea.”

“At least until tonight?”

“Obviously,” he laughs, before realizing that was maybe rude, too. But Mandy is still smiling and biting her lip at him.

“So would you want to come hang out with me and my friends? You could interview some of them, too, if you want. They were all there when we found the weird stuff in the woods.”

Eddie hesitates, because he can’t tell if this is a proposition for a social engagement, or if she’s being serious about interviewing her friends. He doesn’t think there would be much of a point, because he already got the lead for the police, but he supposes it wouldn’t hurt to talk to the rest of them if that ends up being a dead-end. Maybe some of their parents work for the county or something, too, and might be more willing to speak with him.

“Sure! Sounds like fun.”

Mandy insists on giving him her personal phone number before he leaves, even though she also insists on picking him up at the motel herself to bring him to wherever they’re going. Regardless, he pulls his notepad back out and hands it to her, and she writes “Mandy” along with her phone number, with little hearts as the zeros.

It’s easy to find the police station and the adjacent diner, because all of the important buildings in town seem to be on the strip going down Main Street. The town hall, the fire station, the police station, the post office; they’re all conveniently located nearly adjacent to one another, with small shops and restaurants littered in between. Eddie can’t help thinking that was maybe a poor city planning choice on their part, considering a fire could take out this whole strip of buildings in an hour, if it was big enough. He supposes it’s wise that many of them are made out of brick and stone, at least.

He decides to walk there, since it isn’t far from the motel, and he doesn’t want to waste the gas. Mr. Aaronson said that he’ll be reimbursed for the gas it took to get up here and the gas it’ll take to get back, but he doesn’t think they’re covering anything in between.

Maybe he’ll rent a bicycle or something while he’s up here. It wouldn’t hurt, and everything in town seems to be a pretty reasonable bike ride away from his motel. Maybe not the roads closer to the edges of town, but he doesn’t really need to go there. Not yet, not unless he needs to actually go into the woods himself.

The diner doesn’t even have a sign out front, which he finds a bit hostile compared to the other polished, colorful storefronts and signage along the strip. It sticks out like an ugly little cardboard box among otherwise nicely wrapped gifts, as if the building itself is a warning for outsiders to stay out.

He’s nervous as he approaches the front door, which he tries to squash down before swinging it open and stepping inside. He manages, sort of, and tucks the front of his powder blue shirt more neatly into his jeans before approaching the counter, where he sees three police officers sitting and eating lunch.

The restaurant itself is very much trying not to be a tourist town diner, which Eddie respects. There’s no kitschy statuettes of Paul Bunyan or antique maple syrup signs anywhere; it’s just faded floral wallpaper and red tile flooring that doesn’t quite match the shade of Formica on the counter, or the upholstery covering the stools and the booths in the dining area.

It’s not very busy; aside from the three police officers seated at the counter, there are only a handful of other customers inside the restaurant. He figures that’s probably fortunate for him, in case he strikes out entirely.

He walks up to the counter and seats himself one stool to the left of one of the police officers, and he reaches for a menu, though he isn’t particularly hungry. He does find himself wondering if their milkshakes are any good. He hasn’t had a milkshake in so long.

He’s still looking over the options when he hears a raspy voice ask, “Help ya?”

He folds the menu back up and smiles at the source of the voice, which is a very short old man with a cigarette between his lips, and no trace of a smile anywhere on his face. If frown lines are a thing, he has them. Lots of them.

Regardless, Eddie keeps his smile in place. “Hi, could I just get a strawberry milkshake please? With whipped cream and a cherry, too.”

The old man grunts in confirmation before disappearing to the kitchen, and Eddie uses the opportunity to try eavesdropping on the police officers’ conversation.

Truthfully, it’s nothing interesting. They’re talking about a deer that got hit by a car on the side of the road, and that the sanitation department still hasn’t gone to pick it up. Kind of a gross conversation to be having over lunch, in Eddie’s opinion.

“It’s s’posed to get upta seventy today; that fuckin’ rat with antlers is gonna cook in the sun,” the officer sitting closest to Eddie complains in a thick northern Maine accent, before cutting another forkful off of his steak to bring up to his already greasy lips.

Eddie watches the grease and blood mixture from the piece of meat leak out from between his lips and roll down his chin, and he feels a sick twist in his stomach. The pinky-red bead of moisture travels over the rolls in his face and down onto his neck, where it soaks into the collar of his crisp white shirt.

He doesn’t realize he’s been staring until the old man (rather aggressively) places his milkshake in front of him, and he nearly jumps out of his skin when his raspy voice simply says, “Enjoy.”

“Thank you very much,” Eddie replies politely, but he’s already walking away.

The shake looks delicious, but Eddie doesn’t take a sip right away. He wraps his hands around the chilled glass and lets it cool his sweaty palms before he clears his throat and breaks into the officers’ conversation during a lull.

“Hello, I was just wondering if I could ask you a few questions, officers?”

He doesn’t speak as clearly or as loudly as he’s hoping to, and he worries at first that none of them have heard them. But sure enough, the officer sitting closest to Eddie turns to face him, and Eddie’s gaze falls to the line of grease still on his chin before he snaps his eyes up to look into the officer’s own.

“What can I do for ya, son?”

Eddie cringes at the name, and gets himself under control before speaking again, so that his voice doesn’t crack and _really_ make him seem like a child.

“My name is Edward Kaspbrak, I’m a reporter from the Bangor Daily. I was just wondering if I could ask some questions about how your investigation into the disappearances is going?”

The cop, who Eddie can now see by his badge is named Officer Dowdy, raises his eyebrows in disbelief before turning to his colleagues, who are wearing matching expressions.

“You’re a reporter?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Got some kinda ID?” he asks, wiping his hand on the thigh of his pants before reaching his fingers toward Eddie.

He panics and scrambles quite gracelessly for his wallet, but he manages to pull out a small Bangor Daily News business card with his credentials printed on it to hand to the officer.

He reads it over with a scrutinizing expression before his eyebrows rise again, and he shows the card to his fellow officers, who both shrug, before handing the card back to Eddie.

“No, it’s okay, you can keep it.”

The officer shrugs and tucks the card into his breast pocket, and he lets out a small burp before asking, “Whaddya want to know?”

Eddie pulls his notepad out of his pocket and uncaps his pen, flipping to a clean page. “How has the investigation been going? Any leads?”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss an open case, son.”

“Yes, I understand. There’s no detail at all that you can provide? Any idea what might be going on? Any idea if the disappearances are connected?”

“Listen, alright? It’s just a bunch of junkies shootin’ up on the trails and overdosing in the woods, okay? Hardly news-worthy,” the officer in the middle argues defensively, and Eddie politely nods his head.

“And you believe that to be true for the children who have gone missing as well?” Eddie asks calmly, but all three officers exchange tense glances.

“You’d be surprised how young they start around here.”

“Have you found any bodies?”

“It’s an open investigation, we don’t have any information to give you,” the officer at the very end chimes in politely, and Eddie nods once more.

“Do you think the bodies would have turned up by now, or do you believe wildlife in the area may have eaten the corpses?”

“Kid, we’re tryin’ to eat here, okay? Cool it with the corpse talk,” the officer in the middle says with a scoff, and Eddie rolls his eyes before he can stop himself, or his mouth.

“You were talking about roadkill a minute ago.”

“Yeah, well, talkin’ about a dead deer don’t quite turn my stomach the way talking about missing kids does,” he spits with a narrowed gaze, and Eddie feels a stab of guilt in his belly that he has to swallow down from coming up his throat in the form of an apology.

“Of course. Well, in that case, do you believe that-”

“Alright, listen,” the polite officer interjects gently, and Eddie snaps his mouth shut. “The woods around here are dense and hard to navigate, even for people who grew up here. People get lost in there. It’s simple as that.”

“So you don’t think it has anything to do with the dead animals that have been found?” Eddie asks vaguely, trying to lead on that he knows more than he does. Which seems to work, because the three officers exchange another tense round of glances.

“Nothin’ new about dead animals in the woods, kid.”

“But surely it isn’t normal around here to find dead birds nailed to trees.”

Officer Dowdy’s eyes go wide and he looks like he’s about to say something, maybe something useful, something Eddie can actually work with, but the old man behind the counter interjects before he can.

“It’s probably those fuckin’ freaks in the woods doin’ it.”

“God dammit, are you on about that again?” the angry officer asks, and the old man flips him the middle finger before taking one last drag on his cigarette and stubbing it out into an ashtray on the counter.

“I’m tellin’ you, those people are up to some shit.”

“Who? What are they up to?” Eddie asks, and all three officers let out exasperated sighs as the old man leans toward him, bracing himself on the counter.

“There’s a group of hippies living in the woods up a ways east of the Kenduskeag. They’re a bunch of weirdos, I’m telling you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“They live all the way out there in the middle of god damn nowhere-”

“Lots of people live out in those woods, Jimmy. Got an aunt and uncle who do, in fact. They freaks too?” Dowdy asks with a laugh. Jimmy slams his fist down on the counter, silencing the officer’s laughter and any conversation from the others.

“You listen to me, kid. There’s something wrong with them.”

He lets out a rugged sigh before pulling another cigarette from his front pocket to light with a match. He takes a long drag before blowing the smoke into Eddie’s face, though he senses it’s unintentional, so he doesn’t allow himself to get angry about it.

“I used to go out into the woods at night looking for bees nests- I’m a beekeeper; bees ain’t all that active at night, it’s the best time to go and collect them in the wild. So anyways, I got pretty far into the woods one night- farther than I usually do. And I heard this weird sound I couldn’t make out, but it sounded almost like- I don’t fuckin’ know, like trees groaning in the wind, you know? That weird, creaky, whistley sound? But it was real loud, and it wasn’t windy that night. So I start walking toward the noise, and when I got close, it stopped before I could tell where it was coming from. I kept walking, for a little ways- maybe a quarter mile- and got this fucked up feeling in my gut, like something was- something was _wrong._ And so I flicked on my flood lamp- I’d been just using a head lamp before that- and there was- there was a whole _group_ of them just- just fuckin’ standing there in the trees, starin’ at me. Not sayin’ anything, not moving, just fuckin’ standing there. I nearly shit my fuckin’ pants and ran back the way I came from, but I’ll never go into those fuckin’ woods at night by myself.”

Eddie has been frantically scribbling down the old man’s story, and he looks up as he scratches the last few words into his notebook, and the polite officer lets out a sigh.

“Jim, you sure you weren’t just seeing things?”

“No! I know what the fuck I saw! And when I told you, you fuckers didn’t do shit!”

“It ain’t a fuckin’ crime to stand around in the woods at night!” the angry officer barks, and Dowdy laughs, finally wiping his mouth with a napkin, removing the greasy blood from his chin.

“It is now.”

“And- And why is that?” Eddie asks quickly, and Dowdy rolls his eyes before turning back to Eddie.

“Because people keep getting lost in those woods. Thought it was just tourists getting lost without guides, but it’s just dangerous in general. It’s not safe to go out there alone, and it’s best for everyone to discourage the locals from doing it, too.”

“And since instating the ordinance, has the rate of disappearances gone down?” Eddie asks, still scribbling notes into his pad. He looks up when he doesn’t get a response, and sees all three officers pulling money out of their wallets to slam onto the counter before standing to leave.

“Think you got more than enough for your little article, son,” the angry officer leans into Eddie’s space to growl into his ear, and he freezes on his stool, staring up at him with what he’s sure is a childishly fearful expression on his face.

He watches the officers leave without so much as a goodbye, and he stays frozen in place for long after he hears the chime of a bell as the door closes behind them.

He’s broken out of his trance when Jimmy speaks again, pointing at him from behind the counter.

“I’m telling you, kid. Those weirdos in the woods are up to something. If you wanna know what the fuck is going on around here, fuckin’ go ask them.”

He gives Eddie one last firm look before heading out back to the kitchen, leaving Eddie at a loss for words.

He scrambles for his wallet once more to pull out money for his milkshake, which he leaves untouched on the counter, sparing one last glance at the wilting whipped cream dripping down the side of the glass before he stands from his stool and all but runs out of the restaurant.

The entire walk back to his motel, Eddie curses himself for behaving so unprofessionally, so _childishly_ in front of such important sources of information. He just wasn’t expecting them to get so upset so fast. Definitely wasn’t expecting one of them to get in his face like that.

That was dumb. He made himself look like an idiot, and worse, like he doesn’t know how to do his job. And really, he shouldn’t waste the rest of his day wallowing in his own pity, but by the time he gets back to his room, he doesn’t have the courage to go back out and interview anyone else today.

Because maybe he doesn’t know how to do his job. Maybe his mom was right. How is he supposed to be an investigative journalist if he can’t handle a little hostility? He cowered like a child because a man raised his voice to him. How fucking mortifying, not only as a reporter, but as a man.

He can’t stop thinking about it over and over again as he spends a few tense minutes pacing around his room, and then he decides that he desperately needs a distraction. So he decides to call his boss, because he figures it wouldn’t hurt to update him. Besides, Eddie never called to let the office know that he made it to his destination in the first place.

The line at the office rings twice before Susanne answers on the other end, and Eddie puts on a chipper voice to greet her.

“Hey, Sue! Is Mr. Aaronson in the office?”

“Who am I speaking to?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. It’s- It’s Eddie.”

“Eddie?”

“Um… yeah. I- I just started a few weeks ago?” Eddie explains, tugging a hand through his hair as an uncomfortable little stone settles in his belly. She stays silent on the other line, and he’s thankful that she can’t see the hot flush of embarrassment that colors his cheeks. “Edward Kaspbrak. The newest journalist?”

“Oh, right, right. Edward. Yes, he’s in his office, please hold while I transfer your call.”

He doesn’t have time to say thank you before the grating hold music explodes into his ear, and he stiffly sits down onto his bed, staring blankly out of his window as he waits for his boss’s voice on the other line.

“Eddie! How goes the hunt?” he asks amicably when he answers the phone, and Eddie’s face breaks out into a relieved smile.

“Uh- Good! Good, so far. I’ve only talked to a few people but I’ve got some good leads,” Eddie lies.

“Excellent! Quick work. Any idea what’s going on yet?”

“Well,” Eddie begins, digging his notepad out of his pocket. “There’s- There’s been a county-wide ordinance instated that forbids people from wandering in the woods, but the rate of disappearance hasn’t gone down at all.”

“Did you talk to the cops?”

“Yeah, they all think it’s drug addicts overdosing in the forest. But the locals think it’s something else.”

“Like what?”

Eddie looks down at _satanic witches?_ where it’s scribbled in his notepad and swallows before saying “Um…well, mutilated animal corpses have been found, and there was a report of a group of people making weird noises in the woods. So... there are theories of witchcraft.”

“Witchcraft? Sure it’s not just a bobcat or something?” Mr. Aaronson laughs, and Eddie blushes pink, alone in his room.

“Th-That’s what I thought at first, too! But definitely not. Someone found a bird nailed to a tree and a rabbit with its head cut clean off.”

“Definitely odd, I’ll give you that. Anyone tell you where to find them?”

“Find what?”

“The people in the woods.”

“Oh! Oh, um, yes, sort of.”

“Gonna go look for them?”

Eddie hesitates before swallowing around the lump in his throat. “Of course.”

He has a remarkably hard time relaxing after that and decides it might just be best to take a nap. He wants to be refreshed for another round of interviews later. The whole situation at the diner really threw him off of his game, and the prospect of talking to a group of people closer to his own age in a social setting is doing nothing to ease his nerves.

After he strips down to his briefs, he takes an Ativan and slides between his sheets. He considers turning the TV on to see if there is any interesting local news that he has yet to hear about, though he doubts it. Interesting things don’t tend to happen in places like this, unless people go missing.

He falls asleep in the quiet of his room and wakes hours later to someone loudly banging on his door, and he startles out of bed so suddenly that he nearly goes crashing to the floor.

He’s still trying to break up the fog in his brain as he goes stumbling to answer the door, frantically unlatching the lock with shaking fingers. Because it’s the police, it has to be. Who else knocks like this in what must be the middle of the night?

But when he swings the door open, the sun has barely set in the sky, and Mandy is standing there with her hands on her hips, wearing a full face of makeup and a summery, floral dress.

Which reminds him that he is essentially naked, and the fog in his brain clears all at once as he yelps, jumping back from the door and covering his crotch with his hands.

“Well jeez, Edward, buy a girl dinner first,” she jokes with a laugh, and a pink blush staining her cheeks.

“I- I- Sorry! Sorry, I was sleeping.”

“I mean, I sort of took you as an ‘early rest, early rise’ type of person, but 7pm seems pretty extreme, even for you.”

“It’s 7 o’clock?” Eddie asks in disbelief as he checks his watch, running over to his desk to tug his pants back on. Mandy takes it upon herself to walk into the room and close the door behind her, leaning up against it as she watches Eddie button his jeans.

“Sure is.”

How the fuck did he sleep for so long? It feels like he barely closed his eyes.

“God, Mandy, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to oversleep.”

“It’s fine. Do you still want to come?” she asks casually, and as much as he really doesn’t, he needs to talk to her friends about what they saw in the woods.

“Of course I do!” Eddie assures while doing up the buttons on his shirt, and Mandy gives him a wide, toothy smile as he grabs his tape recorder and notepad and camera from the desk.

He manages to regain some semblance of his dignity before climbing into her car, and as they start to drive off in the opposite direction of downtown, he realizes that he has no idea what they’re doing, or who they’re doing it with.

“Where are we going?”

“To pick up my friends.”

“And- And what about after that?”

“You’ll see,” she smiles, throwing a glance at Eddie out of the corner of her eye that makes the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

Eddie spends the next 10 minutes in a blind panic, because maybe he should have thought twice about getting into a stranger’s car in the middle of nowhere when people are disappearing left and right. That was probably a really fucking stupid idea. But that’s what investigative journalists do, isn’t it? Put themselves into danger to get the story?

Some of his anxiety is alleviated once they pull up to a very normal looking house and four people walk out, two male and two female. Eddie truthfully forgets their names as soon as they say them, so he makes sure to write them down as he hears them in conversation during the rest of the car ride.

Mandy still hasn’t said where they’re going, but Eddie has a pretty good idea as they pull onto Wilmington Road.

“Are we- Are we going into the woods?”

“Yeah. Figured you might want to see what we were talking about for yourself.”

“I thought it was illegal.”

“It’s not illegal if we don’t get caught,” Mandy laughs before turning off her headlights, and they crawl down the road in the dark to the end of the street.

The path is a lot bigger than Eddie thought it would be, but it turns out it’s because the hiking trail doesn’t start until about two miles into the woods. They drive very slowly the entire time, which almost makes it worse, because Eddie can’t see anything in the trees around them with the headlights off.

They eventually make it to a small, gravel carpark in the woods, and everyone immediately piles out of the car. Eddie follows on shaky legs, straining his eyes to try to see in the dark of the woods surrounding them.

Mandy opens her trunk and Eddie nearly screams in relief when she clicks on a flashlight and hands it to him, then proceeds to do the same for herself and the two men, whose names Eddie has finally remembered are Keith and Sam.

As the others are rummaging around in the back of Mandy’s car, Eddie shines his flashlight blindly into the woods, which just makes him even more anxious. He’s absolutely terrified that when he moves the beam, he’ll see someone standing there, staring at him from between the trees.

He decides to shine his light on the large map on the edge of the carpark instead, which labels the available hiking trails, as well as the natural landmarks that you can find along the paths. The small waterfall that Mandy was talking about is drawn over with a red X, which Eddie can’t help thinking does absolutely nothing to deter people from trying to find it. If anything, it draws attention to it, like a red guiding dot that immediately draws your eye.

“Where… where are we going?” Eddie asks nervously once they join him by the map, all with backpacks slung around their shoulders.

“Camping!” Mandy yells excitedly, and Eddie tries really, really hard not to panic as she grabs him by the wrist and starts down the trail, tugging him along behind her.

It feels like they walk for an hour, though Eddie knows it couldn’t possibly be that long. Probably just feels that way, because he can taste his heartbeat every time he hears any slight sound in the woods around them. He forces himself not to frantically shine his flashlight all about, partly because he’s afraid of what he might find if he does, but mostly because the rest of them seem so calm about this. Even the two girls, Jess and Tara, who don’t have flashlights of their own. Eddie wouldn’t be here at all if he didn’t have his own source of light.

Eddie hesitates once they begin to turn off of the hiking trail, and Sam claps him on the back, letting out a hearty laugh. “Not chickening out, are you?”

“No,” Eddie forces himself to say calmly, though he desperately wants to cry.

Navigating without looking around too much is harder once they’re off the designated hiking trail, and Eddie has to actually shine his flashlight at something other than his feet as he stares at them. He still feels like his heart is in his throat as he points the beam ahead of himself to watch where he’s going, and he desperately begs his eyes not to play any tricks on him as they continue to walk.

They eventually make it to a clearing, and once they’ve set up the tents and started a campfire, he feels slightly better. Only slightly, because now he’s not so much worried about whatever might be in the woods, he’s worried that the fire is going to alert the police that they are illegally camping here.

But that’s the risk he’s got to take, isn’t it? No one has ever written an interesting story without taking a few risks and stepping outside of their comfort zone, at least a little. And Mandy’s dad is the game warden, right? So if they do get caught, maybe he can get them out of trouble. Besides, it’s not like they’ll get arrested, it’s just a fine. Not that Eddie has $1,000 if they do get fined, but still, that’s less terrifying than the prospect of being thrown in jail.

He finally gets around to asking Mandy’s friends about their own experiences, and it becomes clear to him very quickly that they are all experiencing a degree of groupthink, because all four of them immediately echo Mandy’s witch theory, particularly Tara, who seems almost excited to talk about it, too.

“I don’t know what the fuck else someone would bleed a rabbit and leave its headless corpse in the woods for. It has to be witches.”

“You don’t think it could have been hunters?”

“What sense would that make?” she asks, and Eddie figures that’s fair. “Besides, I found a bunch of weird symbols and shit carved into a log earlier this week, too.”

“Really? Where?”

“Right down that way,” she gestures vaguely, and Mandy stands up from where she’s been sitting in the grass and claps her hands.

“So let’s go investigate!”

This is the part of the night that Eddie has especially been dreading, because he doesn’t want to see a bunch of mutilated animals, despite knowing that they might be an essential part of piecing this puzzle together. Still, he has a weak stomach, and he gets queasy looking at roadkill sometimes.

They take off in that direction anyway, and it doesn’t take Tara long to find the log she mentioned. It’s definitely been intentionally stripped of its bark, and in the pale wood underneath, there are markings and symbols that certainly do look like sigils right out of a demonology book or something. The sight of it makes the hair at the back of Eddie’s neck stand on end, and despite not having gone to church in well over four years, he quickly blesses himself as the others run their fingers over the carvings and discuss what they might mean.

Eddie isn’t very interested in what they might mean, at least not right now. Right now he’s just scared, and he has to put in way too much effort to stop his hands from shaking as he enables the flash on his camera to snap a few photos of the log.

He isn’t expecting the flash to light up as much of the forest as it does, and ice cold fear shoots down his spine as the surrounding trees are momentarily illuminated before the flash dies away.

His fear only grows when one of the men, Keith, asks them “Wait, did you guys see that, too?”

Eddie didn’t see anything, and he doesn’t want to. But Keith starts shining his flashlight to the left of them, and Eddie feels like he’s going to pass out.

“Holy fuck, you guys see that, right?”

As the others make sounds of surprise and disgust, Eddie knows he has to look. He has to, because this is why he came here, and he should have known that investigating a series of disappearances would be uncomfortable. He _does_ know that, but he didn’t think it would be terrifying like this.

He looks over as the group starts walking toward whatever horrible thing they’ve spotted, and Eddie follows after them with stumbling footsteps, trying to see over their shoulders and look at whatever they’re walking towards. Whatever it is, it must be dead, because they aren’t chasing after it.

“Is that a- Is that a fucking deer?”

“It’s a fawn.”

“What the fuck?”

“Holy fucking shit.”

Eddie wills down the cry that tries to rip its way up his throat and takes a few deep, steadying breaths as he makes his way through the others, and the urge to vomit punches him in the gut so aggressively that he can’t stop himself from dry heaving.

It’s a dead fawn, which he expected, based on what the others were saying. That doesn’t make it any easier to look at, though.

There are claw and bite marks along its throat and what’s left of its stomach, likely from a mountain lion or a bobcat, if Eddie had to guess. It’s pretty clear that the deer died from its injuries, though that’s not what’s interesting about the corpse.

Its eyes are missing, and considering how cleanly they seem to have been removed from their sockets, there’s no way an animal did that. In place of its eyes are two long, roughly cut nails, which have been hammered into its skull, suspending it against the side of a tree by its head.

Eddie can’t look away from its dangling body, and he feels the overwhelming urge to run away, despite being utterly frozen to the spot.

None of the others are speaking now, and Eddie feels rage suddenly burn through him, because they must have set him up, right? This is all a really weird, really sick joke.

“What the fuck is this?” he eventually manages to ask, but when he looks back at the others, they aren’t smiling or giggling or playing this off as one big joke like they have been all night. They’re all just as white in the face as Eddie is sure he is, and Mandy seems unable to tear her eyes away from where its own eyes should be.

“I- I don’t know, Eddie.”

It’s worse, knowing that it isn’t an elaborate prank. It’s worse knowing that something- _someone_ must have done this. Done this intentionally, and very deliberately. Desecrated the corpse of a fawn and nailed it to a tree, like an offering.

Which is probably exactly what it is, Eddie realizes. Because he’s become convinced, over the course of the last few moments spent standing here, that it must be witchcraft. Why the fuck else would someone do something like this? Why else would someone carve a bunch of sigils into a log?

But no, no. Witchcraft isn’t a real thing, at least not this type of witchcraft. There may be a severely mentally ill person living in these woods doing these things. That has to be it, right? It’s the only explanation. It’s the only sane explanation.

They quickly make their way back to camp after that, and Eddie is really, really hoping that they’ll suggest making their way back to town rather than sleep in the woods after that ordeal. But that very much does not seem to be the case as the others quietly sit around the fire, and Sam pulls a bottle of liquor and a stack of plastic cups from his backpack.

“That was fucked, dude. I thought the bird was bad,” he says with a solemn shake of his head, and the others nod in agreement as he pours himself a cup of rum and passes it to the left, allowing Jess to do the same.

“Whoever put it there, I don’t think they killed it.”

“So?”

“So if it is witchcraft, what does it mean to leave a sacrifice that’s already dead? I mean… that can’t be good.”

“None of it’s good,” Mandy breaks in, and Eddie nods urgently, swinging his head around to look frantically into the darkness on the edges of the forest not illuminated by their small campfire.

He refuses when she offers him some of the rum, and she raises her eyebrow at him but says nothing as she passes the bottle over to Keith and takes a deep sip from her own cup.

More than anything, Eddie wants to go home. He wants to go back to his motel room, gather up his things, and go back to Bangor. He wants to beg Mr. Aaronson for a shittier job with shittier pay writing advice columns or something. He wants out of here.

He’s never gone camping normally, let alone in the middle of the woods in a place he’s never been to, with a bunch of people he doesn’t know. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt more vulnerable in his life than he does in this moment, and he finds himself wanting to beg them. Beg them to please, _please take me back to town, I don’t want to be here anymore, please._

Staying in the woods after finding mutilated animals and weird, demonic symbols carved into trees is what stupid fucking teenagers do in stupid fucking slasher movies.

Still, the rest of them fall out of fear and into a drunken stupor so quickly that Eddie doesn’t have time to beg. He can’t beg them to navigate their way back through the woods, drunk in the middle of the night. He certainly can’t guide them back on his own. So he’ll have to wait. He’ll just have to wait until morning, and then he can go home and forget about all of this.

He goes to lie down in one of the tents, but he finds himself woefully unable to sleep, as expected. If he had known he’d be spending the night in the woods, he would have brought a change of clothes, and his medications. He would have brought something to eat, too.

He’s lying there with his eyes closed, maybe approaching something that might become sleep when he hears the tent unzip. He cracks his eye open and watches as Mandy stumbles inside, and he tries to pretend that he’s asleep already as she drops the bottle of rum onto the other sleeping bag before plopping herself down on top of it as well.

He thinks that it’s working until she makes an almost comically loud whispering sound to him, but he doesn’t respond. When she does it again, he manages to keep himself from flinching, and he hopes that she’ll assume that he’s asleep and give up.

Which she seems to, for a moment, until Eddie feels her begin to unzip his sleeping bag and he startles, flipping over to face her just as she slides in next to him.

“What- What are you doing?”

“So you are awake,” she slurs drunkenly, and Eddie tries to scoot away from her, but it’s pointless. He’s trapped.

“Mandy, what are you doing?” he repeats, and she snorts out a small laugh before falling into a fit of giggles, dropping her head onto Eddie’s shoulder.

“Do you like me, Eddie?” she breathes more than asks, and all he can smell is rum. He manages to hold back a gag, but just barely.

“Y-Yeah, Mandy, I like you. I think you’re really nice.”

“C’mon, you know that isn’t what I meant,” she giggles, and Eddie considers playing dumb again until he feels her fingers reaching for his zipper.

“Mandy-”

“I like you, Eddie. I think you’re really sweet, and nice, and smart,” she explains in a series of slurred words, and Eddie grabs for her wrist just as she gets his pants open and goes to reach her hand inside.

“Mandy, don’t, please.”

“Why not?”

“I- I don’t want to.”

“Bullshit you don’t want to, what guy doesn’t fuckin’ want to?” she laughs, and the queasy feeling returns to Eddie in a rush.

“We just- We just found a mutilated corpse in the woods. That doesn’t exactly put me in the mood.”

“No worse than seeing a deer hung to bleed from a tree,” she shrugs, and Eddie can’t help thinking that yes, it actually is much worse than that. Besides, that isn’t something he sees everyday anyway, because he isn’t a fucking hick who lives in the middle of nowhere.

He doesn’t have the mind to feel guilty for his unkind thoughts because she reaches for his pants again, and he tightens his grip on her wrist.

“I said no.”

“Why? Saving it for marriage?” she jokes, and Eddie considers saying yes for a second, before she snaps her fingers, as if in epiphany. “That’s what it is! You’re a virgin, aren’t you?” she giggles hysterically, and Eddie is glad that it’s dark inside of the tent so that she can’t see the furious blush that breaks out over his cheeks. “Or… is it something else?” she asks slyly, and Eddie panics before he gives himself enough time to dwell on what she means.

“Y-Yeah, yes. I’m- I’m a virgin.”

“Don’t you want to lose it?”

“Not like this.”

“Want me to suck you off?”

“N-No, no thank you.”

She lets out a groan and a sigh, dropping her head back down into his shoulder.

“Lame.”

She doesn’t say anything else after that, but she also doesn’t move back to her own sleeping bag. Eddie wants her to get off of him, desperately, but he’s afraid of making her angry if he asks. Unfortunately, while he’s building up the courage to tell her that he doesn’t like to be touched, she passes out on his shoulder.

He lies there for a while, listening to her snore loudly into his ear, and he knows he isn’t going to be able to sleep. So he has to lie here, awake and alone, in a tent in the middle of the woods. The woods where some psycho is nailing dead animals to trees.

He tries not to jostle Mandy as he reaches over her for the bottle of rum still sitting on the other sleeping bag. He’s not a drinker; even on his recent 21st birthday, he didn’t go out drinking. Not that he would have had anybody to go out drinking with, but still.

He opens the bottle and makes the mistake of taking a sniff, and he gags again at the acrid smell. He’s never understood the appeal of alcohol, truthfully. But right now, he’s desperate, and he just wants to sleep.

So he plugs his nose and drinks down as much as he can bear to, which is two mouthfuls, before he is absolutely sure he’ll vomit if he tries to get any more down.

He feels a little queasy as he caps the bottle and settles back down, but he desperately hopes it’ll help him get to sleep. He just wants to sleep until morning, then go back to town and back to Bangor and pretend that none of this ever happened in the first place.

He doesn’t quite remember falling asleep. He doesn’t remember closing his eyes, either, in fact. But he startles awake the next morning to the sun peeking through the air holes in the tent, and the first thing he notices is that Mandy is gone.

He sits up in the sleeping bag and rubs his eyes, and he’s so dizzy that he might vomit. He didn’t think he drank enough to get hungover, but he never drinks, so perhaps.

He carefully makes his way to the opening of the tent and unzips it, and he has to admit, the morning air smells amazing out here, in the middle of nowhere. Much better than the landfill down the street from his office that always makes the air smell like broccoli farts when he gets to work in the morning.

He steps out onto the forest floor and immediately freezes, because the other tents are gone. He frantically looks around for them, as if the others might have moved them while he was sleeping, but they’re nowhere.

Ice cold panic settles right under his skin and he tries to take a deep breath, but it whistles into his lungs through the pinhole of his airway.

“Mandy?” he calls out carefully, and there’s no reply, because she’s gone. She’s gone, and so are the others, and they took the tents with them. They left him here. They left him in the middle of the woods.

He wants to scream, but he doesn’t quite know how to. It feels like the scream is trapped in his chest and wants to stay there, and he can’t breathe. He can’t breathe, and he’s going to die in the middle of the woods of an asthma attack.

That, or starvation, or something will come and kill him, because he’s lost in the fucking woods. Lost in the woods alone, because he went into them with a bunch of strangers, and they left him here.

He dives back into the tent and quickly inventories his belongings, and his confusion only grows. His wallet is still there, with all of his cards and IDs, and even the $38 in cash that he has on him. His camera is still there, too, along with his tape recorder and his notepad. The only thing missing is his watch.

He picks up his notepad and quickly flips to the page with their names written on it, and his heart sinks when he sees that it’s been ripped out.

They planned this. They planned to leave him here in the woods to die.

He allows himself to cry, because he thinks he’s earned that much. If he’s going to die out here, he can let himself cry, just a little. So he does. He cries because these psychos set him up, and because he really is going to die, and because his mom didn’t even call him on his birthday, or when he graduated, or when he left her a message in a moment of weakness, telling her that he misses her and wants to catch up.

He leans back out of the tent to vomit into the leaves, and after he does, he screams as loudly as he can at the trees surrounding him. He does it a second time, and then a third, and then his throat hurts too badly to do it again.

He lies there and panics and cries until he thinks he hits a threshold where he can’t panic anymore, and an eerie, chilling calm overtakes his whole body as his brain slows down on its own. He stops crying and pushes himself up into a sitting position, and his mind is completely blank, but at least it isn’t frantic, for the moment. Maybe this is what survival mode feels like.

He has to come up with a plan. He can’t just sit here and wait to die.

It was dark when they walked here, and Eddie has no idea where he is in the woods. The chances of him being able to navigate back to town- or even back to the hiking trails- on his own are slim to none. But the only alternative is to sit here, with no way to contact anybody, and wait for something awful to happen. So he quickly decides not to waste any daylight, since he has no idea what time it might be.

Along with his belongings, they left a backpack behind the one remaining tent. He’s not sure if it’s a mind game or if it was an accident, but either way, he dives for it as soon as he sees it.

There isn’t much inside; just some leftover plastic cups, a half-full bottle of water, and a bag of chips that must have been forgotten last night. At least it’s better than nothing.

He packs the rest of his stuff, along with the rum and one of the sleeping bags, into the backpack. He can’t take the tent with him, which is a terrifying thought, but he doesn’t have time to waste. He’s got to start walking if he’s going to make any progress before it gets dark outside.

He has no idea what direction he should walk in, but rather than allow his mind to panic about it, he picks one and starts walking.

Unfortunately, the direction he chooses to walk in brings him back to the fawn nailed to the tree. Seeing it in the daylight is almost worse, because at night, it felt almost like a bad dream. Like a nightmare, or a horror movie that he was watching play out before his eyes. Now it feels real, watching dozens of flies flutter around where its entrails are barely managing to stay inside of its body.

He vomits again and curses himself, because he’s going to dehydrate much too quickly if he keeps doing that. He nearly just leaves and goes back the direction he came from to guess again at which way is the right way to go, but he figures he should take a picture. The psychos who left him here must be the ones mutilating these animals, and it might be useful evidence when he eventually gets out of here and goes to the police.

So as much as it makes him sick to look at it, he digs his camera out of the backpack to snap a photo of the dead fawn before heading back the way he came from.

He walks for much too long without coming across the tent again, and he realizes that maybe he’s walked in the wrong direction. Panic settles into his bones again as he strains his eyes to try to see a peek of the red tent among the sea of trees, but all he sees are shades of green and brown all around him.

He crouches down on the forest floor and takes a shuddering breath in, and tries to remember what direction the fawn is in. If he can make it back there, then maybe he can figure out what direction the tent might be in, and then he can pick a different direction again to-

“Are you lost?”

Eddie screams when a soft male voice speaks to him, and he loses his balance and goes falling to the forest floor. He scrambles onto his knees and looks around for the source of the voice, and his eyes settle on a tall man with curly, dirty blonde hair, standing a few feet away with a bunch of logs strapped to his back, tied together with rope.

“Where the fuck did you come from?”

“I was just walking past, and I saw you. You look lost.”

His expression is flat and unreadable, and Eddie feels stupid when he feels tears stinging his eyes as he drags himself off of the forest floor and brushes bits of leaves off of his dirty jeans.

“I- I- Yeah, I’m lost,” Eddie tries to admit calmly, but it comes out sounding broken and frantic. “Can you help me? Please?”

The man looks off into the distance before looking behind him, and he turns to Eddie, gently biting his lip between his teeth.

“Where are you trying to go?”

“Back to town, to Derry.”

The man looks at him for a moment longer before walking closer, and Eddie takes a reactionary step backwards. The man freezes, and Eddie feels his breath pick up in his chest.

“Are you alright?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Why are you out here alone, anyway?”

Eddie sort of wants to tell him, but he doesn’t know this man, and trusting people he doesn’t know is what got him into this situation in the first place.

“I was just- just looking for the waterfall, and I got lost.”

The man cocks his head and narrows his eyes, and Eddie wipes the sweat off of his palms and onto his jeans.

“Huh. Okay. So do you want me to direct you to the waterfall instead?”

“N-No, no please. Just to town, please.”

He gives Eddie one last scrutinizing look before reaching into his pocket, and he looks around the woods once more. Eddie isn’t sure what he’s looking for, and he doesn’t think he wants to know.

“Here. Follow due south, and you’ll eventually make it to the road,” the man says quietly, holding a small compass out to Eddie on his palm.

Eddie snatches it from him immediately and watches the needle straighten itself out, and he looks gratefully up at the stranger with tears in his eyes again.

“Thank you, thank you so much,” he says desperately, and the man’s eyes widen as he nods carefully twice.

“You’re welcome.”

“You- You don’t need this?”

“I have another one.”

“Thank you, so much,” Eddie repeats, and the man shuffles his feet, and something in Eddie’s mind is telling him to pay attention, but he doesn’t want to listen to it right now. He just wants to go home.

He turns to leave when the man gently touches him on the shoulder, and Eddie nearly leaps out of his skin.

“Hey.”

“Y-Yeah?”

“You should stay out of the woods. You shouldn’t come back here,” he warns quietly, and Eddie blinks at him.

“I don’t plan on it,” Eddie assures, and he feels weirdly exposed as the man’s blue-gray eyes rake over him, no doubt taking in his appearance, and how disheveled he looks.

“It’s dangerous.”

“I know.”

The man releases his shoulder and Eddie stumbles backwards, blinking up at him as he puts distance between them. He looks Eddie up and down a second time, and Eddie is starting to get that sick, panicky feeling in his stomach again.

“Good luck.”

“Th-Thank you. Thanks again,” Eddie replies, waving awkwardly before turning to make his way south, following the compass’s needle.

He doesn’t glance behind him until he’s sure he’s put a good amount of distance between him and the strange man, and once he does look back, he’s already disappeared.

He does what the man said to and follows the compass south, for hours. For so long, in fact, that he’s sure he should have at least found one of the hiking trails by now. He tries not to get panicky about the fact that the sun is starting to set, or that he still can’t see a break anywhere in the trees.

He just keeps walking, and the entire time, he prays. There isn’t much more to do when you’re lost in the woods other than pray to God to save you, and even though he hasn’t been a practicing Catholic in a long time, Eddie is not above begging God for mercy.

He’s in the middle of asking God to please show him some kind of sign, anything to let him know that he’s going in the right direction, when he sees a flash of red out of the corner of his eye.

He runs towards it without an inkling of hesitation, but his heart drops into his shoes when he realizes what it is.

It’s the tent.

He’s back at the tent, somehow, even though he’s been walking for fucking hours.

How is that even possible? He feels like he’s losing his concept of time. He feels like he’s losing his fucking mind.

He screams again, and this time, he hears a few birds take off from the trees surrounding him as he does it. He looks at the compass and spins slowly around in a small circle, and the needle moves perfectly normally with his changes in direction.

This is fucking impossible.

But the fucking sun is going down, and he absolutely refuses to be out in the woods alone in the middle of the night, with no flashlight. The thought alone is enough to have him hyperventilating again, and he decides he’ll just camp out and head south once more in the morning.

He tries to keep himself from crying as he shoves himself back into the tent and climbs into the sleeping bag, but he can’t stop himself once he’s lying down. He starts sobbing softly into his hands, and then it turns into embarrassing, high-pitched wailing as he feels bad for himself, lost alone in the woods because he got too big for his fucking britches and believed he could really make something of himself.

His stomach growls loudly and he reaches for the backpack, taking out the bag of chips. He’s been holding off because it’s his only source of food, and because they’re salty and he has very little water, but he can’t wait anymore. He feels like his stomach is eating itself alive.

He scarfs down the chips as quickly as he can before ripping the packet open and licking the crumbs off of the inside of it, then digs through the backpack for the bottle of water. Germs are the farthest thing from his mind for once as he chugs down every last drop of the half-drunk bottle, and all it does is make him thirstier.

And he knows he shouldn’t drink more of the rum, because it’ll just make him dehydrate faster, but he is going to die of a heart attack if he panics any more than he currently is, and the further the sun sinks in the sky, the more anxiety he feels filling him up and up and up.

So he unscrews the cap and takes three big sips this time, and he stuffs himself as tightly inside of the sleeping bag as he can, and he waits.

He sleeps even more soundly than he had the night before, which is odd, but a blessing, he supposes. He can tell it’s very early in the morning when he wakes up because the sun is barely rising in the sky, and everything has a hazy, blue glow to it when he unzips the tent and steps outside to go pee.

He stumbles for a moment and feels nausea punch through him, and he stops, settling his hands on his knees. He really can’t afford to vomit again.

He wills it back down and slowly makes his way behind the tent to urinate next to a tree, and as he does, he feels so lightheaded that it’s hard to stay standing. He manages, though, and even manages to zip his pants all the way back up before attempting to stumble back to the tent, which is when he collapses onto the ground and faints.

He’s not sure how long he’s there on his back, but it can’t be very long, because the world looks the same around him when he blinks his eyes open. Well, mostly. There’s a person there, now, standing above him and looking down as he lies pathetically on the forest floor.

Not the same man as yesterday, which is immediately obvious, even through his blurry vision.

He tries to blink his eyes clear, but it isn’t quite working, and all he can see is a blob of pale and black and red, blood red.

He closes his eyes to try to clear his vision, and then he hears the man speak.

“Are you feeling okay?”

He blinks his eyes open again and his vision starts to slowly clear, and he shakes his head no as he forces his gaze to focus, finally.

He gasps when it does, because seeing the man start to come into focus seems to kick start his brain to remember that it’s a person, and people mean danger.

He rolls away as quickly as he can before scrambling onto his knees, and the man takes a step back, raising his hands up in a placating gesture.

“Whoa, sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Eddie looks at him skeptically, clutching at his stomach, which is in so much pain that he isn’t sure he could stand up if he tried.

The man cocks his head as he watches Eddie clutching at his middle, and when he walks closer again, Eddie flinches away, wincing in pain.

He stops once more and Eddie still can’t find it in him to speak; all of his words feel locked away. His vision finally comes fully back to him, just in time to see the man lean down toward him, smiling a wide, gleaming smile, which seems startlingly out of place, considering the situation Eddie is in.

“Do you want some help?” he asks, and there’s a slight hint of a laugh in his voice when he asks it, which would rub Eddie the wrong way if he weren’t too preoccupied with staring at his eyes.

They’re strikingly blue, and they make the sky behind him look pale and sickly in comparison, and Eddie can’t quite tell what’s off about them at first. Not until he takes another step closer, and Eddie realizes that only one of them is blue, really; the second is only half blue, and the other half is pitch black, which bleeds into the blue like ink dropped into water.

He bites his lip thoughtfully as Eddie continues to do nothing but stare up at him from where he’s huddled on the ground still, and then he starts signing, and Eddie cocks his head.

“Are you mute?” he asks out loud, and Eddie assumes that’s what he’s signing, as well, but he can’t be sure.

Eddie manages to shake his head, and the man crouches down in front of him, bending his long legs in front of himself, and Eddie notices that he has a large hunting knife strapped to his waist.

“Just scared?”

Eddie nods slowly, hugging his knees to his chest.

The man looks him over carefully with his mismatched eyes before reaching to unclip a canteen from his waist, which he holds out to Eddie.

Eddie snatches it quickly and nearly rips the cap off, tipping his head back to chug down all of the water inside.

“Slow down, you’ll make yourself sick,” he quietly instructs, and Eddie immediately tilts his head back down, taking smaller sips instead.

The man watches him the whole time, and Eddie feels uncomfortable under the intensity of his gaze. Though he’s sure all of his gazes are probably intense, with those eyes.

Eddie finishes the water in the bottle and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before handing it back, and the man smiles that warm, friendly smile again. Eddie feels himself smiling back before he realizes what he’s doing.

“Th-Thank you,” he manages to croak out, and the man’s smile only brightens, which makes Eddie blush, and he suddenly feels very exposed.

“Feeling a bit better?”

“Yes.”

“You look like you need to eat something.”

“Do you have food?” Eddie asks desperately, and the man shakes his head no, shaking the messy curls framing his face along with it.

“No, but I live nearby; if you come with me, I’ll feed you. You look like you could use a bath, too. And maybe a change of clothes. How long have you been out here?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie answers truthfully, and the man looks carefully around the small camp.

“You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No.”

“Where are you from?”

“Bangor.”

He whistles lowly and smiles that smile again, and Eddie hates how hard it is not to smile back when he does.

“City slicker, huh? What brings you all the way up here? Just needed to get away from it all?”

“Not- Not exactly,” Eddie says with a sigh, running a hand through his greasy hair. “I’m- I’m a journalist, and I was sent here to investigate the disappearances in the county.”

“So you decided the best way to do that was to camp out in the woods with no supplies?” he laughs, and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Obviously not. Some of the locals in town took me up here to show me some- some really gross, weird shit they found, and they just- they just left me here. And I couldn’t find my way back to town,” Eddie explains, and it sounds a lot less tragic and dramatic when he says it out loud.

“What a bunch of assholes.”

“Yeah.”

“Well, if you come with me, I promise I won’t leave you alone in the woods somewhere,” he assures with another charming little laugh, and Eddie really believes him.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

Eddie picks himself up off of the ground with difficulty, and the man stands as well, and Eddie is intimidate by how tall he is, now that he’s up close.

“Can you walk on your own, or do you need me to carry you?”

“I can walk,” Eddie grumbles immediately in embarrassment, though he’s not sure how true that is. Either way, he reaches back inside of the tent to grab the backpack to pull it onto his shoulders.

They start off in the direction of the mountain, and Eddie hesitates at first, because he doesn’t really want to go further into the woods. But at this point, what else is he going to do? He obviously isn’t going to make it out of here on his own, since he somehow fucked up using a compass. He has no survival skills. The worst that could happen probably already has, so he might as well take yet another risk.

He quickly shuffles to catch up with the man’s long strides, tugging the straps of his backpack higher up on his shoulders as he looks more closely at the bow and arrows strapped across his back over the red and black flannel he’s wearing, which seems like odd hunting attire. They look handmade.

“What’s your name, traveler?”

“Um, Edward,” he replies awkwardly, then decides to correct himself. “Eddie, actually. I prefer Eddie.”

“Nice to meet you, Eddie.”

“What’s yours?”

“People call me all kinds of things,” he says with a shrug, and Eddie cocks his head in confusion. He turns to look back, using his heterochromatic eye to throw a wink down at Eddie, smiling another one of those beautiful smiles at him. “But you can just call me Richie, for now.”

**Author's Note:**

> I want to thank all of my sewer rats on tumblr for being so supportive of this fic before it even came out, and I really hope I do justice to what we've all been talking about and going feral over for months now. I love you all so much and this fic wouldn't be happening without you so thank you all for being inspirations to me constantly <3


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